Page 74 of The Wolf and the Chimera
“Before you try to kill me,” Circe said in a rush, “consider that I’m the only one who can open the ripple from this side of the realm and allow you to return home.”
Elle prowled closer toward the witch, and I matched her pace at her side.
“We’ve escaped the inescapable before,” Elle quipped. “Come up with a better reason.”
“Because I know how to stop Medea,” Circe said. Her eyes blazed with magic, a brilliant red so similar to Elle’s. “I know how you can connect with your beast and be who you’re meant to be in your own realm.”
“I’m listening,” Elle said, but Lee’s attention whipped to his wife.
“You told me Circe promised Elle a haven here,” he argued and scowled. “Was that yet another lie?”
Elle stiffened, and I growled.
“You expected her to hide awayherethe rest of her life?” Melanie asked.
Lee glared at the she-wolf, and Bo growled.
“I expected her to be safe,” he spat.
As the light in Elle’s eyes guttered, part of me wanted to rage at the man and part of me wanted to hang my head in shame. So many times, I had behaved just like him. I had acted based on my own fear instead of seeing Elle for what she was. Like him, I had let my anxiety over losing her fester instead of believing her to be strong enough to face the sorceress or the High Witch or anyone else who came at her.
If I had succeeded in stopping her from pursuing her parents, she never would’ve connected with her chimera at all.
“I don’t want to be safe, Dad,” Elle whispered. Her eyes had returned to their warm, brown hue. “I want to be free.”
As silence stretched between father and daughter, I took Elle’s hand and squeezed it.
Elle, the Queen of the Wild Things.
“Why did you call her that title?” I asked Circe.
“It’s who she is,” Circe replied. “Just as surely asyouare the next Sovereign.”
“No shit,” Kieran muttered and scratched the back of his head.
“Yeah,” Melanie agreed. “Lyall is scary, but my wolf has never submittedthateasily.”
“How do you know that’s who Elle is?” Bo asked. Iglared at him, and he continued, “her power is clearly equal to Ryder’s, but where did that title come from? I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
My anger relented, and I focused on Circe once more.
“Of course you haven’t,” Circe said, “because no one has claimed that title in eons. It is reserved for only the most powerful of chimeras, creatures once responsible for upholding the peace of all shifters, until the gods saw fit to use their powerful forms as their mortal vessels.”
“We already knew this.”Sort of.“Tell us something we don’t know, or your pet Minotaur bites the dust.”
The beast shivered, and Circe rolled her eyes, then focused on Elle.
“To reclaim your autonomy,” the witch said, “you must first become so well-versed in your power that no one and nothing can separate you from it. Not even Medea.”
“And you.” Circe studied me with her dark eyes. “You must own the power in your veins instead of running from it.”
The witch must’ve seen the conversation I had with Lyall in his cabin. Her gaze flickered between my mate and me.
“Only together,” the ancient witch declared and looked at me pointedly, “can you be free of the sorceress entirely.”
The weight of Circe’s gaze spun the wheels of my mind with horrible speed.
Together.
